This invention is related to those disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/995,907, filed Nov. 28, 2001; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/962,210, filed Dec. 21, 2007; U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/883,419, filed Jan. 4, 2007; International Application No. PCT/US07/87905, filed Dec. 18, 2007 and published as WO 2008/085673; U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/120, 209, filed Dec. 5, 2008; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/559,630, filed Sep. 15, 2009 and published as U.S. 2010/0176145; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/559,601, filed Sep. 15, 2009, and published as U.S. 2010/0172724; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/617,075, filed Nov. 12, 2009 and published as U.S. 2010/0174552; International Application No. PCT/US2009/066756, filed on Dec. 4, 2009 and published as WO 2010/065845; and each of these prior applications is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
This invention relates generally to systems and associated methods for packaging pharmaceutical products for delivery to the patient and, more particularly, to automated dispensing and packaging systems and associated methods for delivering pharmaceutical products to individual patients in health care facilities.
Hospitals, long term care and other health care facilities distribute and administer pharmaceutical products to patients in individual doses numerous times per day. Pharmaceutical products such as prescription medications, nutritional supplements and the like are often stored in bulk by pharmacies and are repackaged into containers of multiple doses based on individual prescriptions for retail or outpatient distribution. For inpatient or in-facility distribution, pharmacies also often repackage bulk pharmaceuticals into “unit of use” or “unit dose” packages, for example, multiple blister packs that are connected together in a strip that contain multiple single doses of the pharmaceutical product.
The traditional method for distributing individual dosage units of pharmaceutical products to patients begins with the generation of a patient order by a physician for particular medications. The patient order is delivered to the pharmacy. There, the process of interpreting the patient order, pulling the specified medication or supplements from the drug storage areas, packaging the medication or supplements, and labeling the package is routinely done manually by pharmacy support personnel. After a final check by the facility pharmacist, the packaged individual dosage units are ready for distribution. In large facilities, the packages containing the patient's order are forwarded to individual nursing units where nursing staffers distribute and administer them to the patients.
There are several disadvantages associated with the traditional method of distributing individual dosage units of pharmaceutical products. To begin with, the process is labor and cost intensive. Many separate labor steps are required to fill a single patient order. In large facilities servicing hundreds of patients each day, the staffing requirements to rapidly process patient orders are substantial. In addition, with so many human inputs required in the existing process, there may also be a risk of human error.
As an attempt to address at least some of the issues with respect to staffing requirements and human error, a variety of automated medication dispensing systems have been developed. The current landscape for automated medication dispensing is dominated by a 30-day system utilizing either “bingo cards” or unit doses supplied in 30-day box. The known systems provide a 30-day or other multi-day supply for each patient pass-time for each prescription on a relatively long term basis. In the event the patient is discharged or the treatment is changed, the unused portion of the 30-day supply cannot be cost effectively reused even though the product may be labeled appropriately. The labor cost required to reintroduce the pharmaceutical products back into the distribution system and to maintain the integrity and traceability of manufacturer and expiration data exceeds the value of the pharmaceutical products, even if the substantial restocking fees are paid by the healthcare system. As a result, such unused pharmaceutical products are returned to the pharmacy for disposal. This disposal of unused pharmaceutical products is a significant waste of those resources as well as a detriment to the environment.
A variety of pharmaceutical dispensing systems have been used, some of which are described in the various patent applications noted above. While many such systems can select and accumulate the various medications and supplements for the patients in a LTC or similar facility, most known dispensing systems do not adequately package the dispensed medications and supplements for proper and efficient transfer to, storage at or distribution by the LTC facility healthcare workers. The ability to track, package and verify the dispensed medications and supplements in an efficient, reliable and predictable manner according to the specific needs, desires and preferences of the LTC facility is lacking in most such systems.
Hence, there is a continuing need to provide a system and overall methodology for packaging medication orders for individual patients in health care facilities.